Nick Can Fly
by Vol lady
Summary: Jarrod tells Heath the story of the time, when they were kids, that Nick decided he could fly.


Nick Can Fly

1876

"You know, Jarrod, you told me once to remind you about something," Heath said, waiting for that tug of a fish taking his line.

Sitting beside him and waiting for the same thing, Jarrod said, "What was that?"

Heath glanced up at Nick, who had caught a fish and was adding it to the short line they had tied to a log and let hang in the water. All three of them barechested and barefoot, they had been hanging around the pond for several hours already, talking, fishing, dangling their feet in the water, even skinny dipping to start the whole day off. Nick's was the first fish they actually caught.

Heath smiled as he said, "You said you'd tell me about the time Nick decided he could fly."

Jarrod broke into a big grin he aimed at Nick, who heard everything and scowled. "Oh, yeah, I did, didn't I?"

"You had to mention that, didn't you?" Nick muttered and sat back down on the ground beside his brothers.

"Heath asked about how I got the nickname 'Pappy,'" Jarrod said, "and I told him you probably gave it to me." Then he thought of something. "Ha! A 'Nick' name! How about that?"

"So, what's the story of the flying Nick?" Heath asked.

Jarrod kept smiling and laughing.

"I don't know what you're laughing about," Nick said. "You were pretty mad at the time."

"A lot of years and a lot of remembering," Jarrod said. "And once I got out of bed, it was pretty darned funny."

"How did you end up in bed if it was Nick trying to fly?" Heath asked.

"Well, it's like this," Jarrod said. "Nick was about six, I was ten – "

"And he was supposed to be keeping me from doing stupid things like that," Nick reminded him.

Jarrod shrugged. "I'll admit, I missed something there, but I paid for it….."

1853

"Jarrod, why can't people fly?" six-year-old Nick asked.

Nick was always asking these great philosophical questions only children can think of, and at this point in their lives, he was asking them of his big brother rather than his parents. Too often, his parents would burst into these smiles or even laughter that told Nick he was being silly. Jarrod was coming to that age when he didn't smile about much of anything, so that when Nick asked a question his parents might have laughed at, Jarrod seemed to take it more seriously.

"Because God didn't make us that way," Jarrod said.

Jarrod was mucking out a stall while Nick watched. Nick's chores did not yet include handling anything dangerous like a pitchfork. Nick still had a tendency to be on the thoughtless side, not as careful as he ought to be. Nick had already finished his part of the job – making sure the feed bin was full. Now, Nick was just thinking.

"Why didn't he make us that way?" Nick asked.

"I don't know," Jarrod said. "God doesn't tell me why he does what he does."

"Why not?"

Jarrod sighed. "You better ask the preacher that one when we go to church next Sunday. Tell me what he says, okay?" Jarrod started to add straw to the stall he'd just mucked out.

Jarrod was too busy to see that Nick was beginning to look up toward the loft. The wheels turning in that six-year-old head had their own logic they were churning out. Maybe people could fly. Maybe it was just that nobody had ever tried. Nick started for the ladder to the loft.

Jarrod caught him out of the corner of his eye. "What are you doing?"

"Going up into the loft," Nick said, as if that should have been obvious.

"Why?" Jarrod asked.

"Just to see."

Jarrod knew better than to trust his little brother. "Just to see what?"

"Nothing," Nick lied.

"Get down here," Jarrod ordered.

Nick made up a lie quickly. "I want to see if my birthday present is up here."

Jarrod knew that, in fact, Nick's birthday present was hidden up in the loft. His father had shown it to him. Nick's birthday was in a week and his parents were going to give him his own saddle, then follow it right up with his own pony. The saddle was squirreled away up there, out of sight. "Get back down here," Jarrod repeated.

Nick's priorities flipped. The idea of flying was replaced with the idea of his birthday. "Is it up here?"

"Get back down here now, or I'll have Father take you out behind the barn for not listening to me," Jarrod said.

Nick climbed back down.

"You best get in the house and get cleaned up," Jarrod said. "I want to be able to use the bathroom as soon as I'm finished here and I'm almost finished."

"Okay," Nick said and ran out of the barn.

Jarrod heaved a sigh of relief to see him go. Riding herd on his little brother had been his job since he was four, when Nick was born, but sometimes it was just plain exhausting.

Nick scrambled up to the bathroom and was scrambling out again when Jarrod came up. "Stay in the house," Jarrod ordered. "Don't go getting dirty again."

"Okay," Nick said.

Down in the living room, their parents heard the order given and heard Nick's reply. They gave each other a smile. "You don't suppose Jarrod is getting too bossy with Nick, do you?" Victoria asked.

"Nick needs it," her husband said. "That is one headstrong boy, and some of his notions are too much."

Nick came dashing into the living room and up into the settee beside his mother. She gave him a kiss. "Jarrod said I couldn't go up into the loft in the barn," Nick said. "Is that where you hid my birthday present?"

"Nevermind where we hid anything," his father said. "And no, your birthday present isn't even here yet." That was partly true. Even if the saddle was in the loft, the pony was still on the ranch Tom had bought it from. It wouldn't arrive until the morning of Nick's birthday.

Tom's answer had the effect of banishing the thought of his birthday present from Nick's mind, and the thought about flying from the loft flew right back in. Nick didn't express that thought, though. Deep inside he knew it was a bad one, even if something else deep inside was just dying to know if he could fly if he tried.

The urge and the impulse got the better of him. He couldn't sleep that night for the wondering. He got up and looked out the window, and he went back to bed. Then he got up and looked out the window again and went back to bed. And he did it two more times before he couldn't put the urge down. He got dressed, and he tiptoed downstairs and out the front door.

He did not go unnoticed. Jarrod woke up, hearing him moving around, knowing that Nick was up to something but misreading it. When he heard Nick leave, he was sure Nick was going for the barn but he thought it was to go looking for his birthday present, not to go flying. Jarrod still got his clothes on and hurried after his often foolish little brother, expecting to climb up into the loft after him.

But in the dim light from the house and around the barn, he saw the little shadow from outside the barn, up there in the door to the loft, looking down at him. "Nick, what the heck are you doing?" Jarrod called, quietly, trying to keep from waking anyone.

"I want to see if I can fly," Nick said, very matter-of-factly.

"Doggone it, Nick, haven't you fallen flat on your face enough to know that you can't fly? There's this thing called gravity!"

"I never tried to fly when I was falling down," Nick said, believing he was being perfectly logical. And before Jarrod could do a thing to stop him, he jumped.

Nick flapped his arms like mad but of course it had no effect. Part way down he began to scream. On reflex, Jarrod moved to catch him, and he did, but it did little other than flatten them both on the ground.

Nick's scream woke up the foreman McColl and a few others in the bunkhouse, plus Tom and Victoria in the big house. People came running. Nick was groaning on the ground, Jarrod flat out and unmoving beneath him.

"No, don't touch them!" McColl, the first one on the scene yelled.

Nick began to move around and try to get up, crying, hurting. McColl helped him when he got his legs under him and started to stand.

Tom and Victoria arrived. "What in the world is going on?!" Tom yelled.

Nick stood up, crying, his face full of dirt and blood running from his nose. His hands were scraped too. Victoria bent in front of him. "Nick, what happened?" she asked. "Oh, look how banged up you are!"

"I'm all right," Nick protested as his mother began to clean his face with a handkerchief and attend that bleeding nose.

"Don't you move from this spot!" Tom ordered.

Victoria said, "Tom, I have to get him cleaned up."

Tom was bending on the ground beside Jarrod, who was still unmoving, flat on his back, but eyes wide open. "Jarrod, son, can you hear me?"

"Yes," Jarrod said quietly. "I've hurt my back."

"McColl, send someone for the doctor," Tom ordered and McColl complied. Tom leaned over his oldest son again. "Don't try to move, Jarrod. You might be badly hurt."

Nick heard that and froze. And then he began to cry even more.

"Nick, what happened here?" Victoria asked, trying to be gentle, afraid that her husband wouldn't be.

"I – " Nick started and stopped. He knew now how horribly wrong he'd been about this whole thing and he was scared, scared for Jarrod, scared for himself. "I – "

"You what?" Tom asked.

Nick just cried.

Jarrod said, "Nick fell out of the door to the loft. I tried to catch him."

Nick knew right away Jarrod was covering for him, and for an instant he nearly went along with it, but Tom asked, angrily, "What were you doing up in the loft at this hour?"

"I – " Nick flubbered.

Victoria could tell something was going on here. "Tell the truth, Nick."

Nick cried even more. "I tried to fly."

"Oh, geez – " Tom moaned.

Victoria cut him off before he could complete the irreverent oath. "What in the world made you think you could fly?" Victoria cried. "You could have been killed!"

"I'm sorry," Nick said.

Jarrod said, "I think I can get up."

"You stay right where you are until the doctor gets here," Tom said. "Vic, take Nick into the house and clean him up."

Victoria took Nick by the hand and led him inside. Silas was up now, too, and between the two of them they got Nick cleaned up in the kitchen. But Nick couldn't stop crying. He finally said, "I hurt Jarrod."

"Yes, you did," Victoria said. "You did very wrong, Nick. Very wrong."

Nick fell into his mother's arms, crying, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

1876

"Looks like everything worked out, though," Heath said.

"I hurt my back and was laid up for a week," Jarrod said.

"And I was his slave for a week," Nick said. "My punishment was to wait on him hand and foot, and to this day, Big Brother, I'm convinced you stayed in that bed a lot longer than you really needed to."

Jarrod chuckled. "I had to make you do the proper amount of penance," Jarrod said. "Besides, I was obeying doctor's orders. And Heath, Nick was a slobbering mess every time he looked at me. I don't think he's ever felt so guilty about anything in his life."

"I think being a slobbering mess is what got me out of getting my hide tanned," Nick said.

"And it turned out you couldn't fly," Heath said.

Jarrod cast a suspicious eye on Nick. "I don't know, Heath. I'm not sure Nick still doesn't think he can fly, down deep in that little boy soul of his."

Nick grinned, and as fast as he had flown out of that door to the loft all those years ago, he took a running start and a flying leap into the pond.

"Geez, Nick!" Heath cried as both he and Jarrod were splashed with cold water they weren't expecting.

"You've scared off all the fish!" Jarrod yelled, but laughing.

Nick stood up in the water, his wet hair in his eyes, his arms outspread. "But you're right! I still can't fly!"

"You just had to check it out to be sure again, huh?" Jarrod said.

Nick just grinned. "You never know, Brother Jarrod. One of these days, I might just fly."

The End


End file.
